unified communications

Often I hear from channel execs that Agents aren't the future because they aren't moving to selling cloud and managed services fast enough. It is always the MSPs and VARs that will be the partners of the future.

After a 27 hour trip to Enterprise Connect, I can safely say that we have an unqualified me-too business. Video conferencing and collaboration - now called meetings and workflow - were printed on every booth. Here is what I saw.

Cisco demonstrated Spark, which I thought was for SMB, but is being pitched to Enterprise especially with its big hook into Salesforce.

In the news, Windstream on its trek up-market is plowing through a field of customers and partners.

"In December, Windstream sent letters to 171 small-to-midsized business (SMB) customers and their partners explaining that negative or low-margin accounts would be subject to significant rate increases, or these customers were also given the option to move to another carrier without penalty. As part of an ongoing effort, more letters will be delivered to partners and customers in March."

Is it the customers' fault that WIND signed a contract to deliver services they couldn't afford to?

Bloomberg has an article about Facebook at Mobile World Congress and how FB looks like a competitor to telcos. FM Messenger, WhatsApp (that FB owns), SnapChat, Skype, Slack, and many other messaging apps are video and voice enabled (in many cases thanks to WebRTC). More minutes are moving away from telcos. At least, the US cellcos have realized that they are in the dumb pipe bytes business.

First up is Apple versus the FBI over end-to-end encryption on the iPhone. For privacy nerds, Barry Eisler's new book, God's Eye View, was a scary realization that the NSA has too much reach -- and very little oversight.

Over at AVC, there is a discussion about privacy - or rather whether you think Apple should bother - or if all info will be hacked, why not just let it out to stop terrorists and child porn??

Wainhouse research says that the UCaaS industry will grow at a rate of 24% year over year. 8x8 is doing that with their revenue. "Total revenue of $53.2 million increased 29% year-over-year; service revenue of $48.9 million increased 29% year-over-year," despite still losing money.

Seeking Alpha wrote, "RingCentral's move upmarket is substantially increasing their revenue per seat and allowing them to drive the top line." Well, same thing at 8x8, which raised its ARPU to $369 from $305 last year.